Special Devices Nears Relocation to Moorpark

Special Devices Inc., a Newhall-based manufacturer of aerospace and automotive parts, is nearing completion of the first phase of development at the site of its future headquarters in Moorpark. Company officials expect to begin construction as early as mid-July.

The company received approval from the Moorpark City Council last year to develop a 298-acre parcel at the Moorpark Freeway and Los Angeles Avenue.

Officials now anticipate relocating the Special Devices corporate office, along with its aerospace division and a division that manufactures air-bag detonation devices, to the campus-style facility by June 1998. The building is expected to cost $20 million to $25 million.

“We’re on a conditional lease in Newhall that doesn’t allow us to expand,” said John Vinke, chief financial officer of Special Devices, in explaining the move to Moorpark.

Vinke said the company probably will employ 600 to 700 workers in the Moorpark facility when it is fully operational. The company has another plant in Arizona where it also manufactures air-bag detonator devices.

Along with the pending relocation of company headquarters, Special Devices recently finalized a seven-year lease agreement for an additional 25,000-square-foot building on Maureen Lane in Moorpark. That division will manufacture the glass-sealed casing that houses air-bag detonators.

Vinke said the company would like the operation to be up and running by September or October of this year, after improvements to the facility have been completed. Jim Longwell, general manager of the division, said it will staff 20 to 30 employees.

The new division, Vinke said, is representative of a shift in business strategy for Special Devices.

“We are vertically integrating some of our operations,” he said. “We’re taking part of what we formerly purchased from outside and manufacturing it ourselves.”